Thanks to https://github.com/omerfaruk-aran/esphome_samsung_hvac_bus project, I now have my older living room aircon unit hooked up to Home Assistant!
I used a Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32-C3 board, with a 3.3V capable fully isolated RS485 converter board that I had lying around.
Seeed also has its own RS485 Xiao breakout which would be perfect. In fact, I ordered one of those, but I forgot to wait for it to arrive! Heh.
The small black cube that has a JST connector is a miniature 240VAC to 5V 0.5A converter (HiLink HLK-PM01). I ordered several of these from a reputable supplier a while ago. They’re helpful when monitoring/controlling a device with no convenient DC supply to siphon off. (Note to self — pull this out and add a fuse inline tomorrow).
